


Celebration

by Marsalias



Series: Grandfather Clocks [9]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Death Day, Lost Time, PTSD, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23702740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marsalias/pseuds/Marsalias
Summary: A year ago today, Danny died.
Series: Grandfather Clocks [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706959
Comments: 23
Kudos: 425





	Celebration

Danny sat on top of the ops center, looking over Amity Park, one leg pulled up to his chest, the other swinging freely over the edge of the building. It was a beautiful day, bright, clear, and warm, full of mid-summer glory. Even the ghosts were taking a break. Nothing could go wrong on a day like today.

Except, a year ago, on this very date, something _had._

Danny had died.

He took in a long, shaky breath, reminding himself that he could. That he could still breathe, that his heart still beat, that his body was still warm. Compared to room temperature, anyway. He was still alive.

But he was also dead, and had been for just a few hours shy of a year. The anticipation would be killing him, if it wasn't too late for that. He didn't know why he felt like this, didn't know he was so on edge that he felt like he might shake himself apart. He should probably go talk to Jazz, she knew his secret now, and she would probably say something soothingly incomprehensible about trauma and memories, but he couldn't bring himself to be around people right now.

Or, maybe more accurately, he couldn't bring himself to be around _humans_ right now.

His skin itched, crawling along the all but invisible scars of his death. He ran his hands up and down his arms, leery of using the nails he had chewed ragged earlier. He shook himself. He'd come up here to distract himself, not to wallow.

He raked his eyes over the skyline. He was probably the only one who could see it like this, with all its shimmering, unearthly secrets.

(The distortions of space and time that hung like pearlescent curtains. The streets that only existed from one direction, or by toll. The ghosts of unbuilt and forgotten skyscrapers. The galaxy swirls of natural ghost portals, visible to humans only as green disks. The straight roads that looped back on themselves. The shadow of the suburb that existed only on rainy days. The eager pulse of convenience store walls. The park forest that got deeper, _larger,_ the farther you went in.)

The fabric of reality was thin here, and growing thinner. It had probably always been that way, but it had grown noticeably more so since Pariah Dark stole the town in March. Even normal people were begining to notice the more obvious places. Danny knew that some people in his class had started to use the 'shortcut road' in June, last week he'd had to rescue Wes from a rather nasty, but luckily transient, spatial distortion (not that Wes had been grateful), and just yesterday he'd overheard a pair of convenience store employees discussing whether or not their store _usually_ had six rows of shelves, or just five.

He hoped it wasn't dangerous. Even if it was, he doubted that he would be able to stop it. His parents hadn't been able to.

Danny shuddered. His skin felt like it was too small. His human skin was too small, and his ghost buzzed and tingled right under it, his aura pushing on the underside like a thousand thousand pinpricks. He fervently wished to step out of it, to leave it limp and empty on the roof of the ops center.

At the same time, Danny knew that going ghost right now would be a _bad_ idea. More than that, he didn't want to give up even the appearance of humanity right now. He clung to life. He was alive.

As if to mock his resolution, invisibility gently washed over him, rendering him transparent and ghostly even in human form. He groaned, and buried his head in his arms. His heart was pounding, and something deeper in his chest, in the place he called his ghost form from, was trembling. He felt sick. Faint, in more ways than one.

What was wrong with him? Even if this was the anniversary of his- of the Accident, it was really just another day. Just like a birthday was really just another day. There wasn't, there shouldn't be, anything magical about it. Unless it was a ghost thing, or, more specifically, a Dead thing, to get horrible, crippling anxiety on the anniversary of the day they had become ghosts.

At least his Obsession wasn't acting up. Much. Everyone was safe today, and would stay that way, thanks very much, even if he had to claw off his skin to make sure. He might be all over Sam and Tucker in other circumstances, might be clinging to his sister, even shadowing his parents, but he didn't want to inflict himself on anyone else in this state. Possibly more importantly, he was afraid.

(If he was honest, he might say that he was up here hiding.)

Then he shivered and his breath came out white, his body detecting the presence of a ghost. He leapt to his feet (Tried to, anyway. His feet didn't quite make contact with the rooftop.) and spun, not really ready for a fight.

Luckily, though, it looked like he didn't have to fight. "Clockwork?" he said, surprised but relieved. "What- What are you doing here? Is something wrong?"

"Not exactly, no," said Clockwork, regarding Danny with what might have been sympathy. "Today is your Deathday."

Danny nodded, tilting to the side a little bit. Clockwork put a steadying hand on his shoulder, keeping him upright.

"Can you change?" asked Clockwork, carefully gentle.

"Will it help?"

"It will change your perspective," said Clockwork, "and it will make it easier for us to get where we're going."

Danny bit down on his lip, hard enough to taste blood. He really didn't want to change, he really didn't want to go anywhere. But Clockwork always had a reason for what he asked, so Danny reached for his ghost half (he didn't have to reach nearly as far as he usually did), and triggered the transformation.

Almost immediately, the feeling of his skin being too small vanished. It was replaced by a massive spike in anxiety driven straight through his heart. There was danger. There was danger somewhere. His family was in danger. His friends were in danger. His people were in danger. They had to be, otherwise why would he feel this way? He had to stop it, he had to make it stop, _now._ He had to help them, had to protect them, keep them safe, he had to go, go, go-

Clockwork caught him by the hem of his shirt, right before he launched himself off the roof. "They're fine, Daniel. The ghosts know what day this is for you. They won't disturb your haunt."

"Really?" said Danny, dubiously. "Even the animals?"

"Your friend, the Huntress, will take care of the few that will come through today. It will be a good learning experience for her."

"She won't get hurt?" asked Danny, nervously looking back out over Amity Park. Oh, gosh, all those cars. Cars were dangerous. He should-

"She will be hurt," said Clockwork, effectively distracting Danny, "but it will benefit her in the future."

Danny hesitated, then nodded. Net benefit. Right. He had to remember to look at that, take it into consideration.

Wait a second. Clockwork had grabbed him by his shirt. His _shirt,_ not his suit. He looked down. He was wearing his normal clothes. But he was definitely still in ghost form. His skin was glowing.

"It is your Deathday, Daniel. The Dead appear as they were in life on their Deathday. Don't worry. Here." He took Danny's left hand and turned it over, gloves whispering against Danny's bare skin.

Danny looked. There wasn't anything there. He pulled his hand away, rubbing his palm with his opposite thumb. It wasn't at all noticeable when he was in human form, but there was always a shadow of his death scar there. It was gone now. He wasn't sure how to feel about that.

"It's temporary," said Clockwork.

"Okay," said Danny, putting his hands in his pockets. He tried a smile. "Where are we going?"

Clockwork put his arm around Danny's shoulders. "You are ready?" he asked.

Danny started to nod, then something occurred to him. "Won't people, um. I can't fly around looking like this. Or I shouldn't. Um." He didn't want to disappoint Clockwork. He shouldn't force Clockwork to come up with the solution, either. "I could run in and get a hoodie, or something... Or, um, I guess I could just turn invisible," he finished, blushing. Why was he like this?

"That would be fine," said Clockwork. "But we can do this instead." He wrapped his cloak around Danny, pulling him close so that he was almost entirely under the purple cloth. Danny could hear the watches on Clockwork's wrist ticking, as well as the deeper tocking of the one in his chest.

"Oh," said Danny, feeling very shy. He hooked his fingers into Clockwork's belt, drawing himself just a little bit closer. "Okay."

"Shall we go?"

Danny nodded into Clockwork's side, and made himself weightless. Danny didn't know where they were going, so Clockwork would have to guide them.

Clockwork took off much more slowly than Danny would have expected. The differences between weightless and massless aside, he wasn't that big. But then Danny realized that Clockwork was just going slowly so that Danny wouldn't be startled. That was nice, if a little embarrassing. Not many adults were so careful of him, but the very last thing Danny wanted to do was inconvenience Clockwork. (Well, maybe not the last thing. There were a great number of other things that he wanted to do even less. Still.)

All the same, between Clockwork's calming aura, the rhythmic ticking of the clocks, and the peaceful aerial view of Amity Park, the barbed-wire anxiety that had been wound around and through Danny's chest all day began to loosen. Flying always helped him calm down. Why hadn't he thought about flying before?

It looked like Clockwork was bringing them to Sunshine Union Building. That made sense. The thirty-seven floor building was the tallest, and most striking, in Amity Park. That is, it would have been, if it had been completed. Some time in the seventies or eighties, before Danny had been born, anyway, a company came to town, promising to modernize Amity Park and bring it much needed wealth. They had filed building plans, made sales pitches, commissioned architects, displayed models, even brought out potential tenants. They just needed a few more investors, just a couple more people to put in down payments on a soon-to-be-built apartment. Then, when they had over a tenth of Amity Park buying into their scheme, the company vanished, never to be heard from again.

People had been unhappy about that, to say the least.

(A few older people still thought that it might be built.)

Normally, a scam like that wouldn't leave anything behind but broken dreams, debt, and perhaps any plans they filed to make their lies sound more convincing. But this was Amity Park. Normal really wasn't.

The Sunshine Union Building had never been constructed, but its ghost still stood tall over the city. Not that many people could see it. Actually, unless you were exceptionally sensitive to the paranormal, even by Amity Park standards, you could only see building if were higher than it was. Or just high. Some drugs could temporarily increase (or, just as often, decrease) a person's ability to perceive the city's weirdness. Then, even if you were higher than it, the lower stories seemed to fade out, until they were overtaken by the much more humble office building that was actually there. As the SU Building was the highest in Amity Park... Well. Other than the ghosts, very few people knew of its existence.

There were three ways to get into the ghost skyscraper. One was to go into the normal building, get on the elevator, and hold down two buttons, any two buttons, until the lights flickered and the music changed. Then the elevator would take you to a floor in the Sunshine Union Building. Another way was to take the 'under construction' staircase (The staircase was not, in fact, under construction. However, a bit of research showed that someone had been murdered there.), but that was tricky, because you could only get there if you skipped certain steps, and the building manager would try to stop you if she saw you sneaking into the stairwell. The third way was easier. If you could fly, that is. If you could come at the building from above, you could just land on the roof. It was easy to get into the rest of the building from there, seeing as the roof had been designed as a combination pool/lounge.

That seemed to be what Clockwork was angling for. Danny examined the building for anything out of the usual. Other that the building's existence, of course. He didn't find anything. Then again, he didn't really expect to. He didn't visit the SU often. The imaginary building had ghostly residents, but they had never caused any trouble, so Danny left them, and the building, alone.

They touched down on the roof. The pool was dry, its tiles chipped in patterns even Danny could recognize as arcane. There were no chairs, and glowing red-spotted ghost ivy grew across most other surfaces. Standing here, they were probably closer to the Ghost Zone than the material world.

Danny hoped that Clockwork wouldn't mind how close he was staying.

(Danny should probably be embarrassed by how he was acting. He was fifteen now, now five, and he was acting like a clingy toddler. What was wrong with him?)

"It is normal," said Clockwork, starting to lead Danny to the door.

"What?" said Danny, surprised.

"The way you are feeling," said Clockwork. "It is normal. You are a young ghost, and this is your first Deathday. You must remember, in many ways, you are only a year old." They stopped in front of the doors. "You are allowed to rely on an adult, now and again."

Danny opened his mouth, ready to argue that, no, he wasn't, not with how his half-life was, but then blushed green, as the deeper meaning of the words caught up with him. He snapped his mouth shut, and buried his face in Clockwork's side. "Thank you," he said, words muffled.

Clockwork patted Danny on the shoulder, and pushed open the door. Almost immediately, Danny's ghost sense went off, followed by his guard going up.

"Unuili," said the ghost that had been waiting for them. It was an old spirit, Danny could tell, and one that did not deign to take a humanoid form. It looked almost as if someone had taken a mostly dry and very beaten up paintbrush and swiped it vertically through the air, using reality as a canvas. Almost. It was three-dimensional, and it moved, shimmering and shifting, but that first impression remained. It continued to speak in Old High Spirit, a language that Danny still didn't have a good grasp on.

Clockwork responded in the same language.

The ghost flickered, the dim lights in the hall doing the same. Then it floated to one side and phased through the wall, staining the paint with vertical streaks.

"What did they want?" asked Danny, as they continued down the mostly empty hallway. The building was very haunted. The shadows moved strangely on contact with Clockwork and Danny's auras. Things scuttled within them. Danny ignored them. They were harmless, looking for the emotional high they'd get from a jump scare.

"To know why we were here."

"Why _are_ we here?"

"Because it is your Deathday," said Clockwork. "The end of your first year as a ghost. It deserves to be marked. Celebrated." Danny tensed at the last word. "A quiet one, of course," continued Clockwork, reassuring Danny.

"Right," said Danny. "Quiet. Small?"

"Yes," said Clockwork. "This isn't a day to be alone, but it also isn't a day to be overwhelmed by people."

Danny exhaled softly, just realizing that he had been holding his breath. "Thank you."

They got into an elevator, floating right through the doors, and Clockwork pushed one pulsating purple button. The lights went on and off, and other ghostly figures crowded in. The music was probably played by a musical saw, but could have been sung.

The floor they got off on was made of mirrors and glass. Every surface was silver and bright, painted neon with ghostly glows and blue by the outside sky.

A ghost, this one humanoid, in a neat suit, floated to them, reflections approaching and receding. "Your reservations are ready," she said, flame-blue hair dancing around her head. "This way, please."

Danny stayed glued to Clockwork, half-hidden beneath the older ghost's cloak, as the woman led them on. She glanced back.

"First time?" she asked. Her tone was sympathetic, but curiosity burned in the flat disks of her eyes.

Danny bit his lip, but nodded.

"I remember my first time," said the ghost. "It does get easier. Eventually you'll wake up on your Deathday, and it will just be another day."

They reached a mirrored door whose surface was textured with spirals. The woman opened the door, and stood aside to let Clockwork and Danny in. It was much darker in the room than it had been outside. Danny had to blink to let his eyes adjust.

The room was fairly large. There were pillows and beanbags lined up against the walls, and a low table in the middle of the room. There were lights on the ceiling, tiny little ones arranged in drifts and galaxy spirals. The far wall was a window, but it looked out over a foreign nightscape, not Amity Park.

Jazz was perched on one of the beanbags, and looked like she hadn't decided whether or not to be comfortable. Tucker was sprawled face down on the floor, having apparently fallen asleep. He really should stop pulling all-night video game sessions. Sam was standing up by the window, chewing on her nails, not a good sign. Danielle was sitting on the floor, eating peanuts.

"I will be back with your order in a moment," said the woman, closing the door and making the room even darker.

"Dani!" said Danny, throwing up his hands.

"Danny!" said Dani, throwing up hers.

Danny skirted Clockwork to tackle the now only-slightly-smaller half-ghost. "It's been forever!"

"It's been, like, two months," said Dani.

"Yeah, and you're not even a year old, so..." Danny trailed off. "I missed you. We've got to get you a phone or something."

"I can do that," said Sam, taking her thumbnail out of her mouth. "One of those pre-paid ones will work, right?"

"Uh, sure," said Dani.

.

.

.

Clockwork settled down onto one of the cushions, winding his tail around it. Daniel was distracted now, though not as much as Clockwork would like. There was still a sort of _sharpness_ to his movements, a nervous energy that had him looking over his shoulder and checking the door.

Clockwork grimaced internally. There had been other options, but this had been the best place to commemorate the date. Long Now was unsuitable for a number of reason (all of which had one eye). Daniel's lair was out of the question, he hadn't found it yet, and two 'firsts' at once would have been a too stimulating. Far Frozen had been considered, but was, ultimately, too far from Amity Park to be a good choice, and not private enough. Just letting Daniel work through the day on his own... Clockwork hadn't even considered it. That would have been too dangerous.

He had too many examples of child ghosts hurting themselves on their first Deathday. Or subsequent ones.

Here, Daniel was in a safe, mostly secure place with no sharp edges. Even the table, being imaginary, like the rest of the building, could be retracted at a moment's notice, pulled flush with the floor, far away from any delicate body parts. The room was dim, and could be made darker. The food, when it came, was all finger food, nothing that required even a spoon, and the cups were plastic.

It seemed those measures wouldn't be necessary for some time, however. At the moment, Daniel and Danielle were gleefully stacking pillows on Tucker, having a contest to see who could balance the most pillows on him before he woke up, with Sam refereeing.

Jasmine, on the other hand, had sidled around to where Clockwork was sitting.

The redhead bit her lip. "Mister Clockwork," she started, voice soft, "thank you for helping Danny. I don't think that we could have even tracked him down, and he's been jumpy all week, but..." she trailed off, emanating nervousness. Clockwork waited, patiently. "Why was he hanging on to you like that?" Unspoken was the fact that Daniel had only known Clockwork for a few months, from Jasmine's perspective.

"Children often find the presence of an adult reassuring, do they not? It is the same for ghosts."

"Yes," said Jasmine, clearly struggling to put her objection into words.

"This isn't quite the place to discuss this," said Clockwork before she continued. "Nor, especially, is it the time."

Jasmine sighed. "You're right," she said, with a touch of frustration. She, like her brother, did not enjoy having her curiosity go unsated.

Clockwork nodded. Any minute now.

"Oh my gosh," said Danielle, muffling laughter with both hands. "We need a picture. We _need_ a picture. One of you guys has a camera, right? You've got to."

Daniel's smile was a tad more strained than his younger sister's, but it was still genuine. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't even grab my phone before I left, let alone a camera."

Jasmine shook her head as Danielle turned her huge eyes and quivering lower lip to her. "My phone doesn't do pictures. Cell phone cameras usually don't have good quality in the dark, anyway."

"Sam?" said Danielle, flipping backwards so that she was upside down.

"You still have that Polaroid, right?" said Daniel. There was a _very_ slight quaver in his voice.

"Y-yeah," said Sam. "One sec." She pulled the boxy antique out of her backpack. "The flash will probably wake him up, though."

Danielle giggled. "Do it!" she urged.

"First piece of blackmail, huh?" said Sam, smirking a little.

"Do it!" said Danielle again. Daniel looked a bit pale.

Sam lifted the camera to her eye, and snapped the picture. The flash strobed like lightning, illuminating every part of the room for less than a second. Tucker jumped, dislodging the meter-tall tower of pillows on his back. Danielle cheered. Daniel had frozen, not even breathing. As expected. Clockwork had hoped...

Well, it didn't matter now. This was only the first of what was to be many panic attacks. It was unavoidable. All that Clockwork could do was minimize the damage. He swept up to Danny, and put his arms around him.

"Breathe, Daniel," he said, calmly. "Breathe."

At the second reminder, Daniel sucked air in through his nose. "I- I can do that. I can do that. Right. I'm- I'm okay. I'm sorry, Sam, what were, what, um." He shook his head, and shivered closer to Clockwork. "What were you saying?"

"I didn't say anything," said Sam. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah," said Danny.

It didn't take too terribly long for a sense of relative normalcy to resume. Clockwork had told Daniel's friends what might happen, that this, and worse, might, and he was glad for it. The best thing to do was simply keep Daniel from focusing on it, from focusing on things like _why_ a camera flash would startle him so badly, on _why_ he felt so on edge. Yes, those things could be explored later, after the hour of his death had passed.

.

.

.

Clockwork was the only person awake in the room now. The hour of Daniel's death had come and gone, bringing with it an extended crying jag that had exhausted all the humans, and half-humans, in the room. It really had gone much better than he had hoped, especially after Sam had suggested the party games. Clockwork had somehow missed that tree of options, of outcomes, during his initial planning.

Enough time had passed that the sun was beginning to rise over the alien landscape outside the window, and Clockwork was idly wondering if he should bring the humans back to their homes. Ultimately, it didn't really matter whether they woke here, or in their own beds, but sometimes Clockwork felt the need to play up the 'mysterious' angle of his reputation. On the other hand, he didn't particularly want to disturb Daniel, who, while not sleeping _on_ him, was partially propped up by the same large cushion Clockwork rested on. Actually, any significant movement on Clockwork's part would, nine times out of ten, disturb all of the children, who had arranged themselves in what Clockwork was very tempted to call sleep dominoes.

Well, Clockwork was more than content to watch the sun rise. After all, he had all the time in the world.


End file.
